Death Valley Hot

A heat wave smothers the continental USA and the national weathermen are predicting that the temperature in Death Valley might hit 120 today.

The manager of the Wrangler Restaurant in Furnace Creek on Tuesday closed the establishment after the ACs went on the blink, saying, "We can't put customers through this -- it's just too hot."

Hot, but on July 10, 1913 the thermometer hit 134 degree and this reading has stood over a century as the highest recorded on Earth.

GOP Flat Earthers dispute the present heat wave as proof of Global Warming.

"It's summer in the desert."

"They don't call it Death Valley for nothing."

"This is a dry heat."

For me hot is hot and at 130 in the shade it feels like the sun is ironing your skin.

My advice to those Global Climate Change denialists is simple.

Drink liquids, don't move, and stay in the shade, plus pray to your Nailed God.

It's a pleasant temp in New York.

80 this morning

In the 90s in the early afternoon.

My old bones like the heat just fine.

Cold As A Dog's Tongue

120 in Death Valley.
98 in Brooklyn.
Ice cream stick in my hand.
A glob of vanilla falls on my foot.

Cold spreads on my skin
Like frost from a hole in an Inuit's boot
Cold, but not close to zero in winter.
And then the cold melts above freezing.

A dog looks at the ice slime
His tongue loos over his teeth
His eyes glazed with desire.
To lick my foot.

I offer him a taste.
His lap is quicker than his owner.
A taste of paradise is worth the jerk of a chain.
If a dog could have winked then this one would have.

Because sometimes a dog's friend is a man with ice cream on his foot.
Far from Death Valley
120
Twenty miles away from ice cream.

A Hobo's Song

The other day I was driving down Dekalb Avenue and read an open-call sign for workers.

DRIFTERS WANTED.

I blinked and the offer of paradise vanished jarring my eyes back into focus.

DRIVERS WANTED.

What a difference a single letter makes, then again I've always sought something more than the world has to offer and sometimes less.

Johnny Cash - Hobo Song

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qg_uMvQ9Ji4

Poetry In the Ruins

Industrial ruins haunt both sides of the Hudson River.

Tall chimneys mark them from a distance.

On this winter morning no one is there but me.

Walls stand as tombstones.

They act as grafitti billboards

For my eyes only.

Black is our safe shadow. Scream into her earth and cry. Protect with unconditional love. Hold your echo mist important to death. I dare any dead mouth to test my ethics.

Poetry is the only magic left in this desolate world.

Like red hands on a cave wall in Sulawesi.

Or Legong dancers in Ubud.

Modern roads offer no enchantment.

Where are the hobos?

Only in books and photos.

And then in poetry.

There's a race of men that don't fit in They roam the fields and roam the sea There's a race that can't stay still And they climb the mountain crest So they break the heart of kith and kin For theirs s the curse of the gypsy blood And roam the world at will And they don't know how to rest.

Robert Service, Poet.

I know both the road and poetry.

Anyone who loves magic does.

Mark Frechette ZABRISKIE POINT

"As you get old, you forget. As you get older you are forgotten." James Steele

Some of us never get to be old or even older, especially those doomed by the James Dean's curse 'live fast, die, and leave a good-looking corpse'.

Few men of the counter culture were as good-looking as Mark Frechette.

In 1968 Michelangelo Antonioni was searching for the male lead of his MGM film ZABRIKSIE POINT. A year had passed without finding the right actor, but casting director finally discovered Mark Frechette in Boston, while the handsome member of the Lyman family commune was having a shouting match with a man in a 3rd floor above a Charles Street bus stop.

"Motherfucker."

The casting director wrote to the director that he was 20 and he hates.

Seeing his photo Antonioni green-lighted the new-comer. Neither Mark nor his co-star Daria Halprin had any previous acting experience, for Antonioni was looking for the raw quality of rebellious youth. The filming of a fugitive gunman took place in Los Angeles and finished in Death Valley. Mark Frechette hated the the experience. He thought the Italian director to be a phony. On THE DICK CAVITT SHOW the high school drop-out tells the TV audience not to waste their money on the film, which was later listed as one of THE WORST FIFTY FILMS OF ALL TIME.

Frechette returned to the Fort Hill commune with Daria Halprin and the $60,000. The lovely Halprin fled Boston to later marry Dennis Hopper, but Mark remained true to the guru, Mel Lyman, and attempted a bank robbery with two friends in 1972. His accomplice was shot at the scene of the crime. Mark Frechette had a gun without bullets.

"There was no way to stop what was going to happen. We just reached the point where all that the three of us really wanted to do was hold up a bank. It would be like a direct attack on everything that is choking this country to death."

He was sentenced to 6-15 years, however the movie star died in a prison weight-lifting accident according to the prison officials.

Damn, he was good-looking.

And that I don't forget.

To see how handsome please go to this URL

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-jyzFfrtLRk&feature=related

Death Valley Hot

A long heat wave covers the West and the weathermen are predicting that the temperature in Death Valley might hit 130 this weekend, approaching its all-time record of 134 degrees set a hundred years ago. This reading is reputed to be the highest recorded on Earth. Flat Earthers dispute the heat wave's proof of Global Warming. "It's summer in the desert." "They don't call it Death Valley for nothing." "This is a dry heat." For me hot is hot and at 134 in the shade it feels like the sun is ironing your skin. Drink liquids, don't move, and stay in the shade. I'm doing that in New York with a lovely can of 'Gansetts. It's New England's beer.

Mark Frechette ZABRISKI POINT

"As you get old, you forget. AS you get older you are forgotten." James Steele Some of us never get to be old or even older, especially those doomed by the James Dean's curse 'live fast, die, and leave a good-looking corpse'. Few men of the counter culture were as good-looking as Mark Frechette. In 1968 Michelangelo Antonioni was searching for the male lead of his MGM film ZABRIKSIE POINT. A year had passed without finding the right actor, but casting director finally discovered Mark Frechette in Boston, while the handsome member of the Lyman family commune was having a shouting match with a man in a 3rd floor above a Charles Street bus stop. "Motherfucker." The casting director wrote to the director that he was 20 and he hates. Seeing his photo Antonioni green-lighted the new-comer. Neither Mark nor his co-star Daria Halprin had any previous acting experience, for Antonioni was looking for the raw quality of rebellious youth. The filming of a fugitive gunman took place in Los Angeles and finished in Death Valley. Mark Frechette hated the the experience. He thought the Italian director to be a phony. On THE DICK CAVITT SHOW the high school drop-out tells the TV audience not to waste their money on the film, which was later listed as one of THE WORST FIFTY FILMS OF ALL TIME. Frechette returned to the Fort Hill commune with Daria Halprin and the $60,000. The lovely Halprin fled Boston to later marry Dennis Hopper, but Mark remained true to the guru, Mel Lyman, and attempted a bank robbery with two friends in 1972. His accomplice was shot at the scene of the crime. Mark Frechette had a gun without bullets. "There was no way to stop what was going to happen. We just reached the point where all that the three of us really wanted to do was hold up a bank. It would be like a direct attack on everything that is choking this country to death." He was sentenced to 6-15 years, however the movie star died in a prison weight-lifting accident according to the prison officials. Damn, he was good-looking. And that I don't forget. To see how handsome please go to this URL http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-jyzFfrtLRk&feature=related